Miatatude

Made it to work with the top down, but up it went as rain was in the forecast. Lightly rained a couple of times during the day and we ran right through a heavy line of thunderstorms on our way to Augusta to run the Miata Club newsletters through the postage meter.

Big news is it is a different postage meter. For the first time in nearly four years of Miata Club newsletter producing we have a different sponsor. Ever since the last GM at Andy Jones was hired our relationship has soured. I hope the guy is selling cars for Andy, because he sure wasn’t nice to us. Let me put my Nostradamus hat on and say this is probably cyclic and we will be back at Andy Jones in another 10 years. Right now the new guys are interested, the GM and a salesman at Rader are Miata owners and are in the club, but life is fluid….

Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 66

This afternoon I finally polished the right taillight to match the left. When Jim got to the Sonic, we walked over to my car so I could give him the wheel and polish back, he said, “Missed one.” Me, “Huh?” Jim, “The third brake light on the trunk lid.” Me, “DOH!” accompanied by a Homer Simpson-esque head slap. The Procrastinator King now has 10 days to do the center taillight before the next Club meeting.

Big crowd for MMM…Time number two, considering 3 of the regulars were off tearing up the track at Talladega. Judy Arrowood and sons, Nicholas and Zachary came out in the Miata with the VW Bug kit. 🙂 Cathy Miller rode navigator in son Andrew’s car, while her friend Roxanna Lane drove her car. Ron Kaufman’s son, Keith and grandson Josh came along in a Corvette. And guest Terre Bohman joined some of us regulars in his turbo’d white ’99 with those sweet Flyin’ Miata duals. Seven Miatas and nine cars in all.

Plan was to hang out at the Sonic an hour or so, then take a back road drive over to North Augusta and the site of last month’s MMM…Time, the Sno-Cap. The Sno-Cap was having their 4th Saturday Cruise-In and we wanted to look under the hood of a car besides Jim’s. We ended up staying a while longer than planned at Sonic, as Jim was stuffed under the dashboard of Andrew’s car fixing his windshield wipers. Without too much more than the usual shenanigans associated with a nine car train on public roads, we managed to make the last half of the Cruise-In. John & Jackie skipped the drive and were waiting for us at the Sno-Cap.

When we finished parking, the lot was full, even with Ron and son parking in the church lot across the street. Besides us there was a little of everything, classics, hot rods, 60’s muscle and even a couple of choppers. They held some drawings for door prizes and Jim won a milkshake, while John won a banana split. Andrew would have won a T-shirt, but he left 5 minute before they drew his name. Ron missed winning a Long Dog for the same reason.

After the prizes, Sno-Cap owner, Rachel tried unsuccessfully to coerce enough contestants to hold some sort of dressing/undressing contest. She swears that they had done it once already earlier and everyone had fun, we remained unconvinced.

Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 63

Put the top up to wash the car this morning. Back down for the drive over to the GA Welcome Center to meet the gang. Today was Tech Day for the Master’s Miata Club. We meet there and drove over to Kurt’s house because he has a two car attached garage, a place for four cars in the drive, a single car un-attached garage with workshop and he lives at the end of a dead end road where more cars can go. First we made a “quick” stop at the local Mazda dealer, they just got in a new 2002 Titanium Gray SE and we wanted to peep at it.

Today’s Tech Special was brake bleeding. Rudy bought a Forced Induction device called a speed bleeder. You pressurize the brake system and open the bleed valves and whoosh, out with the old and in with the new. No need to pump the pedal. Supposedly this allows you to do the job by yourself, of course it took 4 of us to do it. 🙂 They did 4 cars (I think including clutch systems too) and Rudy changed over to some new Axxis brake pads. I didn’t do the brake thing as I was busy installing toggle switches to replace the hazard & pop-up buttons. Now that I got them in there, I’m not sure I like it.

I’ll give it a couple weeks to see if it grows on me. Needs a little refinement as well. The outside plate I made was a little too small and I need a backing plate or something as the switches move around when used as I couldn’t get them tight to the console.

When we went in for our pizza lunch I put the top up as there were some gray clouds hovering about. Cleared up a bit after lunch so the top went back down. Jim Creer brought his polishing wheel and magic goo so he could show me how to shave the lettering off the side makers. It is an old hot rodders trick from way back, to polish off the raised lettering on the red and yellow lights to keep from getting unsightly dried wax build up. He did one and then part of another, which I then finished. Borrowed the stuff from him so I can do the tail lights evenings this week.

Started down, went up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 54